2020 Appalachian Trail – Epilogue – Southern Half Completed!

Wednesday, 23 September

Destination: Daleville, VA
Start Location: Long Mountain Wayside, Buena Vista	Trip Miles: 78.8

I’ve added a featured image to each day, corrected formatting and typos. Finally, I added a note about the mileage calculations and corrected the tables with locations and mileages for each day. Photos from Bob are in the first album below. All of photos from Bob and I are in the second album.

With completion of this section, I have now completed the southern half of the Appalachian Trail, from the Approach Trail at Amicalola Falls in Georgia to Duncannon , Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. 1,149.0 miles completed of 2,192.0 miles total.

Nine days of hiking – nine days without a mask. Things actually felt like normal in this time of covid.

Using the Guthook app for the Appalachian Trail, I’ve calculated daily ascents and descents in feet. Our total ascent is the equivalent of climbing the steps in the Empire State Building over 18 times or an average of about twice a day. This was while carrying a thirty pound pack. Quite the workout!

Day	Date	DoW	Miles	Ascent	Descent	Ascent minus Descent
1	23-Sep	Wed	11.3	3,507	3,068	439
2	24-Sep	Thur	8.8	2,162	3,622	-1,460
3	25-Sep	Fri	3.9	787	974	-187
4	26-Sep	Sat	9.4	4,190	1,781	2,409
5	27-Sep	Sun	8.5	2,379	2,526	-147
6	28-Sep	Mon	8.2	2,014	4,167	-2,153
7	29-Sep	Tue	10.2	2,959	1,936	1,023
8	30-Sep	Wed	9.9	2,635	3,035	-400
9	1-Oct	Thur	8.6	2,208	2,513	-305
	Total		78.8	22,841	23,622	-781

Next year’s trip is undecided but Bob and I have plenty of time to plan. There are some hikes we did many years ago. We may repeat one of those or find something new. There is also the possibility of a kayak trip. We did a canoe trip on the Oswegatchie River in the Adirondack Mountains a long time ago. We still remember the brook trout. Umm, fresh trout for dinner. Something to plan during the long winter.